


Spark

by themysteryvanishing



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Asari - Freeform, Banshees, Gen, Mass Effect - Freeform, Mass Effect 3, Minor Character Death, Short One Shot, banshees get their own tag bc they're terrifying af, implied/suicidal ideation, in-game dialogue included, untold stories of huerta memorial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28696878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themysteryvanishing/pseuds/themysteryvanishing
Summary: If you wander the halls of Huerta Memorial long enough, you're bound to overhear horror stories from the Reaper war.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Spark

_Then the traveller in the dark  
Thanks you for your tiny spark.  
He could not see which way to go,  
If you did not twinkle so._

The only time her patient could calm down anymore was at night.

At night, when no one spoke. At night, when she could keep her back to the wall, her vision trained on the door to her room. At night, when she could not catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

The way the sunlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the day was awful, she said. Everything was too exposed. Including her.

She would often add, it made her heart race, and she didn’t like that very much.

“How come?” she would ask her patient.

And her patient would flinch at that, before eventually replying, “Because we were trained not to. I was trained to be better.”

The first time her patient had answered her, it had been the most she’d verbalized since being admitted to the hospital. The psychotherapist didn’t want to rush her, but progress had been stalling for weeks. There was only so much in her arsenal as a mental healthcare provider, especially now with the war, and the ever-present threat of dwindling supplies, medications, and even available rooms.

So when the doctor learned her patient had been refusing showers, it was with a degree of annoyance that she drew up a modified treatment plan in the midst of a hospital running out of places to care for its patients. If it meant relocating their sessions for her patient to finally feel comfortable enough to talk, then it would have to do, for now.

“So, the nurse tells me you’ve refused to bathe,” she finally pressed one afternoon, the two of them seated opposite each other in a dimly lit hallway away from the commotion of the main hospital.

“Yes,” her patient replied, voice clipped, edged with panic, as her gaze flitted up and down the hall. “Can I have a gun?”

The doctor frowned and made a quick note on her datapad. “I’m sorry, no.”

“Maybe I could be transferred to another hospital, then? Someplace unsecured. I could have a gun then, right?”

Her patient nervously rubbed her hands over her thighs as she kept her back parallel to the wall behind them.

“And no humans,” she added quickly. “Wherever you transfer me, it shouldn’t have humans.”

“The humans are our allies,” the doctor responded, eyebrow raised. “You don’t trust them?

“No, it’s not that, I…” her patient’s gaze suddenly refocused, and she shot a look at the doctor. “How are my eyes? What color are they right now?”

The doctor studied her patient a moment, unwilling to indulge the young woman’s fears. She attempted a redirect.

“Maybe you could tell me what happened.”

\- -

_It had been three weeks since deployment._

_Intel at a time like this was worth more than her sector’s entire guard put together, and she had a full data cache of it. It was nearly time for her hunt to return to base for the scheduled uplink, but not before her commando announced they’d be returning home via the scenic route._

_Tiptree, a small human colony en route to their destination, was in dire need of an evac._

_Aeian supposed she ought to consider herself lucky. Being paired with Neaira had been a kindness; at least she knew her fighting styles like the back of her own hand, and together, they had been a formidable pair, their strategies in lockstep with each other._

_Even if she had botched everything by asking her out._

_Stupid, Aeian. Just stupid._

_Neaira had turned her down gently enough, citing her ‘medical condition,’ but goddess if that hadn’t made the final leg of their journey to Tiptree an awkwardly silent mess._

_“Initiating deorbit burn,” Neaira announced to the quiet cockpit. She reached past Aeian to flick a few switches on the dashboard, deliberately keeping her focus on the radar screen. “Assuming manual control.”_

_Aeian bit her lip as she took up her own joystick._

_So stupid._

_The inertial dampeners kicked in as they sliced through the atmosphere, which registered as a barely perceptible bump that buffeted the ship as it slowed its descent to the lush green planet below._

_“Neaira—”_

_“Nineteen degrees down from the horizontal,” her commando cut across, pulling the ship into a steep glide._

_Right. All work, no play._

_Her commando brought the nose of their shuttle down gently outside a field on the edge of the colony. Aeian leaned forward in her seat to look out the window, smiling to herself as she caught sight of a freckly human girl emerging from the field to greet them._

_Evacuating a small outpost of farmers was something even an uninitiated maiden could do in her sleep, Aeian reasoned. If all went well, they would dodge the scouts and marauders entirely, and she’d be back on Thessia by this time tomorrow._

_After all, Aeian admitted, catching a whiff of herself as she unbuckled herself from the co-pilot’s chair, she really,_ really _needed a shower._

\- -

_The evening had thus far gone off without a hitch._

_The girl with the freckles and braids, who called herself Hilary, showed Aeian around while the asari secured the farm. There had been an issue with scouts breaching the fields to the southwest, the farmers had said. Neaira instructed Aeian to continue on to the house with the girl and the others, and that she would coordinate with another fireteam to take their shuttle for the night, to continue the evac with the added bonus of the cover of darkness._

_The homestead wasn’t much, just a few barns and houses clustered together at the center of great swathes of farmland, each field responsible for a different harvest. Aeian didn’t know much of human farming methodology, and the meal itself was no acolyte’s supper, but she appreciated the humans’ hospitality and willingness to share what they’d grown._

_The pace of life was different here, far slower than that of a huntress. The girl called Hilary had laughed at that observation, and spent the evening asking Aeian everything there was to know about being an asari commando._

_“I wanna be a pilot,” Hilary said over supper, between bites. “My brother’s a pilot.”_

_“Life on a ship is grimy, you know,” Aeian replied, half-smirking as she downed the rest of her drink._

_“I don’t care!” Hilary laughed. “I take it you’d like to use our shower?”_

_\- -_

_By the goddess, Aeian T’goni swore she’d never take a hot shower for granted ever again._

_The sheer delight she’d taken in unburdening herself of her gear, which she had dutifully folded in a neat stack in the bedroom (gun and combat knife on top of folded undershirt on top of folded thermal pants on top of folded compression socks, her hardsuit hanging out on the line for a proper airing out—country laundry—Hilary called it), had her bordering on ecstasy._

_Water dripped off the tips of her le’ku as she leaned against the shower wall._

_Her muscles ached, the weight of the work she’d done in the last few weeks threatening to drag her body to the floor. She scrubbed a hand over her face._

_As wonderful as this shower was, she knew it would be a poor treatment of her hosts if she left them without hot water._

_She snapped off the faucet._

_The towel Hilary had provided was massive and fluffy, and smelled like fresh cut grass. It was earthy and homely, and Aeian bundled herself in it with a satisfied sigh._

_There was a knock on the door._

_“Hey Aeian?”Hilary asked. “Your girlfriend’s back.”_

_Aeian scoffed and rolled her eyes. “She’s not my—”_

_“Yeah, yeah,” the girl replied, voice muffled from the other side of the door. “Guess your other team got back early.”_

_Aeian thought as much, too. She tucked her towel more securely around her and opened the door. Perhaps Neaira wouldn’t mind a hot shower…_

_Aeian slicked her hands over her tendrils, gently squeezing water from them as she stepped into the main living area, where Hilary and a few of the farmers had gathered for a quick drink before bed._

_CRACK._

_Aeian jumped. The door to the house snapped open, breaking off its hinges from the unnecessary force. Neaira stood in the doorway, a dark silhouette against the night sky beyond, her form gilded by the light of a solitary lamp overhead._

_Something was different…off. It was an asari, alright…but the shape was all wrong. Her hardsuit was gone._

_A chill crept up Aeian’s spine._

_Soft pinpricks of purple light began to illuminate Neaira’s form. Her breathing was labored, chest and shoulders heaving with raspy breaths._

_The light finally reached Neaira’s suddenly skeletal gaze and she slowly turned to meet Aeian’s eyes._

_Aeian recoiled. “Wh—”_

_SCREEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_

_Aeian clapped her hands over her aurals, the deafening screech cutting through her skull and reverberating her bones. The air around her seemed to shudder in the aftershocks of the scream._

_Aeian turned to see the humans scrambling to their feet, one of them reaching for a shotgun above the mantle. Time slowed down and Aeian could not move quickly enough. The human was suddenly right in front of her commando-turned-nightmare._

_Neaira reached out with one long, dessicated arm as her eyes went inky black, and wrapped her skeletal fingers around the barrel of the shotgun. In one fluid movement, both the firearm and the farmer exploded into black liquid._

_Warm droplets splattered Aeian’s face as she gasped for air, nearly gutted by the horror of what she’d just witnessed._

_Other humans ran into view, all of them screaming and yelling and waving their weapons. Aeian couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. All she could do was watch._

_Neaira tore into them, dissolving them on impact or by opening up biotic fields in the middle of their bodies, tearing them in half. Limbs and blood and that sickly black fluid were everywhere now, and Aeian couldn’t move._

_The screams and yells gradually stopped, and Aeian suddenly realized she had nothing but a towel on her._

_No gun. No knife. No armor._

_Movement behind Neaira brought Aeian back to the moment._

_Husks._

_So. Many. Husks. They poured into the room._

_Aeian suddenly regained feeling in her feet. So she did the only thing she could._

_She ran._

_\- -_

_The hills on the outskirts of Tiptree were heavily wooded and thick with underbrush. Where the fields were well-tended and kept free of overgrowth, the hilly landscape beyond was a wild labyrinth._

_Which was fine by Aeian._

_Save for the fact that a towel hadn’t afforded her much in the way of protection, least of all from the thorny flora._

_At some point, Aeian realized after she’d gotten far enough into the hills, she must’ve grabbed the girl. Because after running as far as she could on the sudden burst of adrenaline alone, Aeian almost screamed when Hilary threw herself down on the ground beside her, sobbing._

_“By the_ goddamn _moons,” Aeian hissed. “Where in all hells did you come from?”_

 _Hilary wiped back her tears, smearing dirt on her freckled cheek. She was missing a shoe, and her braids had fallen out. “W-who was that? What did she_ do _to them?”_

_Aeian didn’t even answer, instead taking a moment to collect herself and even out her breathing. She sat back on the brush, wiping a cold sweat from her brow as her calves started cramping. Her towel was torn and no longer white, spackled instead with red and black and brown and purple…_

_She shuddered._

_The night was cold and the sky was dark, save for the tiniest spark of starlight above them. Her goal swiftly became a simple one: survive._

_Hilary had her knees curled to her chest and she was muttering quietly to herself._

_Aeian did her best to push the anger out of her voice. “Did you see the shuttle?”_

_Hilary stopped muttering and slowly looked back up at the asari, her gaze hollow._

_“No. It was gone.”_

_Aeian nodded and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think._

_“Does that…does that mean they won’t come back for us?” Hilary asked, her voice small. She had stopped crying, dirt-stained tear tracks lining her face. Aeian suspected the shock would be setting in soon, if not already._

_“They’ll come back,” Aeian said, if not for her own comfort, then for Hilary’s. “They’ll realize we haven’t checked in for the scheduled uplink, and they’ll come looking for us. This continent isn’t very big. They’ll find us.”_

_She wasn’t sure if Hilary was even processing her words, but Aeian hoped that the confidence with which she said it got through to her._

_In truth, Aeian wasn’t entirely hopeful. If the shuttle came back and saw that sea of husks, they wouldn’t even bother touching down._

_A cool night breeze rustled the trees and prickled Aeian’s skin._

_They were on their own, for now._

_\- -_

_The next two days were spent weaving through the hills, tripping over roots, tying off gnarly gashes with strips of fabric torn off of Hilary’s shirt (Aeian would have offered her towel, but figured the grimy fabric alone would do more harm to an open wound than good), and searching for anything that could be deemed edible._

_Aeian hated this._

_She’d trained for wilderness survival, sure. Somewhere on a planet far from here, she even had a framed certificate stating as much. But there had been nothing in the user manual about what to do when your not-girlfriend got Reaper-fied and had gone on a murderous rampage, stranding you on an unfamiliar planet. While trying to keep a whole other person, whose physiology vastly differed from hers, alive._

_Nothing in the books about that._

_And she had nothing but time to dwell on that._

_Sometimes her thoughts were broken up by the occasional appearance of a husk or three. They’d lumber aimlessly into the woods, their creepy white eyes shining in the shade of the wood’s canopy._

_It was better to kill them than to let them accumulate, Aeian reasoned. And despite their lack of modern weaponry, both she and Hilary—to Aeian’s surprise—managed to kill a few with nothing but their fists and really big sticks._

_Hilary’s shock had begun to wear off by the end of the second day. She didn’t speak much anymore, wordlessly following Aeian’s directions whenever they took down a husk or simply nodding in understanding when the asari recommended they stop for a short rest._

_If Aeian had had any energy left to spare, she might be more concerned about Hilary’s silence, but as it was, she had nothing left. For a farming community, there was a sore lack of edible substances beyond the fields. If they didn’t want to starve, they’d have to move back, closer to the farms._

_That and, she finally admitted by the end of day two, if they wanted to be rescued, they were going to have to send a distress signal themselves._

_And of course, Aeian realized, her radio was still in the house._

_With Neaira._

_\- -_

_The third day dawned bright and early. Aeian didn’t even need to wake Hilary, who was already up and poking at the ground with her stick._

_“Right, so. The plan,” Aeian said, retying her towel around her for the millionth time. It was little more than a scrap of cloth at this point, a sad excuse for a tunic. Her toes were purple now from the cold, her feet caked with mud._

_“I say we head down the hill north of your farm. Whatever it was your, uh, family was growing, those tall green and yellow plants, if we, uh, if we stay low, should give us enough cover to get to the house.”_

_Aeian was so tired. But it was the closest thing to a plan they’d had so far. Hilary merely nodded in understanding, pushing back a lock of dirty hair behind her ear._

_They spent the morning circling around to the northern hill, grateful for the steadily decreasing appearances of husks. By the time the sun was high in the sky, they were both panting and sweating._

_They took their time navigating the field, careful not to rustle the stalks as they wove between the rows. Every now and then, a distant, horrid screech would fill the air. They used the screams for cover as they pulled the vegetables from the stalks._

_“Corn,” Hilary finally said, her voice devoid of any emotion. Aeian realized she must be referring to the food, as she peeled back the papery outer layers. They nibbled the kernels in silence as they continued to creep towards the house. The corn was sweet, not at all unpleasant, and a welcome change from the starvation of the last few days._

_At the edge of the field, the two of them scanned the eerily empty homestead. Aeian signaled for them to circle around to the back of a barn. From what they could tell, all the houses were empty. There were no bodies littered about. No evidence that anyone lived here, save for the fetid puddles of black and red soaked into the dirt paths._

_“Where’d everyone go?” Aeian asked quietly._

_SCREEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAEAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_

_Neaira’s scream was much closer now. Aeian’s teeth vibrated as she clenched her jaw._

_They crept along the side of the barn and made quick glances around the corner._

_Sure enough, Neaira was there, fifteen meters away, her sickly form levitating above the ground as she seemingly commanded marauders to dump bodies onto large pikes, impaling their lifeless forms._

_Bile rose in Aeian’s throat._

_She closed her eyes a moment, opening them again as Hilary began tugging on her arm._

_“What is it?”_

_Hilary was on her tiptoes, peering into one of the dusty windows of the barn. Aeian brought her hands up to shield her eyes from the sunlight._

_Movement caught her eye._

_“The humans,” Aeian breathed. “They’ve been captured.”_

_Hilary nodded and hooked a thumb around the corner, indicating the barn doors. Aeian nodded in agreement and they slinked around to the front of the barn, which, mercifully was unlocked._

_The darkness was sudden and stark, and it took a moment for their eyes to adjust. Aeian groped the wall for support as she made her way towards the prisoners, Hilary in tow._

_Aeian heard her gasp and rush forward to one of them; the sound of the clinking of chains followed. She got as far as undoing a few restraints when the air split in half with a collective scream._

_Aeian dropped to her knees, hands clamped tight over her aurals again, staggered by the sudden screeching. She watched in horror as dozens of eyes lit up the dark barn, every single human indoctrinated._

_It was as though an alarm had gone off._

_The indoctrinated prisoners rushed the two women, who staggered back out onto the dirt. Hands of death grabbed at them, tore her towel, ripped skin, gnashed teeth. Hilary threw wild haymakers with her stick, which she quickly lost._

_Aeian suddenly remembered Neaira, and turned._

_Neaira, or whatever she was now, levitated towards them, arm outstretched, eyes black. Aeian’s head split open as Neaira forced her mind upon her. It was the power of the Ardat-Yakshi, Aeian knew, tenfold._

_Her eyes watered and she struggled to get away, panic blinding her._

_She wished she had her damned firearm._

_Now that their cover was blown, she realized in one small moment, she was free. The biotics that she had been refraining from using for days exploded out of her in a rush of crackling purple and white energy. The bodies pressing in on her were flung back, tossed across the field like ragdolls._

_Aeian threw warp after warp at the ones charging Hilary, deftly missing her and ripping the indoctrinated in half. The air crackled and prickled her skin._

_She almost smiled._

_Another soulless creature launched itself at Hilary just as one grabbed Aeian’s outstretched arm. The warp field rolled off of her at the wrong angle, and she couldn’t stop it._

_The purple energy sliced through the air, mostly hitting its intended target, but it caught Hilary by the leg, and she dropped instantly._

_Aeian exploded the prisoner in front of her and charged towards Hilary._

_Oh goddess, no, oh by all the moons, please no…_

_No time to think, no time to panic, no time to think, no time to panic._

_Aeian clocked Neaira, ten meters out. No amount of offensive would do any good at this point._

_Clenching her fists, she allowed biotic energy to accumulate within her as she eyed one of the barn’s load-bearing walls. She reached up and yanked down with everything in her body, the muscles in her biceps tearing as she biotically ripped the wall from its foundation and she slammed it into the ground to shield her and Hilary._

_Dirt and cement rained down on them and another building beside the barn exploded._

_She grabbed Hilary and ran._

_\- -_

_Aeian’s arms were on fire._

_Carrying a human after shredding one’s muscles with dark energy was not, she discovered, conducive to making it very far._

_She’d found another barn—one that hadn’t yet been destroyed or used as some sick trap—and, with great effort, climbed into the rafters with Hilary, gently lying her against some of the hay bales stored up there with them._

_There was no plan anymore._

_Hilary, for her part, looked like death. She was pale, her breathing shallow, and, worst of all, her leg was in two pieces, white bone sticking through the skin, her pants matted with scarlet. She whimpered._

_Aeian couldn’t think. Neaira was still out there, with an army of husks and marauders at her command. And nobody was coming for them._

_She wished, more than anything, that she had her firearm. If not for her, then…_

_Hilary started crying again._

_Aeian brought a finger to her lips, panic edging her whispers with a threatening hiss._

_“Hilary, please, you have to shut up, please. Shut. Up.”_

_But Hilary could only sob harder. “My leg! What the hell did you do? To my leg!” she wailed._

_Aeian’s skin prickled again and she knew. The biotics thrumming and rolling off of Neaira meant she was close._

_Aeian clamped a hand over Hilary’s mouth, muffling her cries. Snot and tears dripped down her hand but she kept it in place. She pressed her face against the floorboards, not daring to breathe as she scanned the barn below._

_Hilary started screaming under Aeian’s grip, trying to bite the asari’s hand._

_Aeian panicked. She could practically_ hear _Neaira’s biotics now._

_And with that she realized, quite suddenly, she had only one choice left._

_Hilary’s eyes were feral and bloodshot with fear and rage as she struggled beneath Aeian’s grasp. Aeian straddled the girl in one swift movement and brought her other hand behind Hilary’s head, almost cradling the girl’s face._

_“Athame forgive me,” she whispered, and directed one last burst of biotics through her hands. The blinding white light overloaded Hilary’s brain, frying her neural network. Her skull vibrated in Aeian’s hands, and a moment later, she was still._

_Aeian dropped her hands and heaved a silent sigh. She didn’t dare move._

_Neaira was directly beneath them._

_\- -_

“…In addition to your medical discharge, the government wants to give you a medal,” the doctor finally said.

Aeian shifted uncomfortably in her seat, unable to meet the doctor’s gaze.

“The intel you provided when that shuttle finally found you? You saved a lot of lives.”

Aeian frowned. “But I killed those farmers.”

The doctor reasoned with her. “They were indoctrinated. You had to defend yourself. And…as for Hilary—”

“No, you idiot,” Aeian spat. “When I took a shower and left my gun in the bedroom…I killed them. And Neaira…at least she can blame the Reapers. But I’m just…me.”

Her gaze suddenly refocused and she quickly looked around. “What color are my eyes?” she asked suddenly. “Did they turn back after, or—Could…could I get that gun now?”

The doctor frowned but attempted a placating tone. “I’ll see what I can do.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far, major kudos to you and thank you so much for reading! I adore the Mass Effect trilogy, but writing fic for it has always seemed so daunting! I encourage you to check out "Entanglement" by my buddy Akoya8, because that fic truly emulates the bittersweet relationship so many players have with this memorable game, and without which, I might not have summoned the courage to try my hand at writing this.


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